


Good Things Come

by Seethedawn



Category: Frozen (2013), Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Retail, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Past Abuse, Past Anna/Hans (Disney), Protective Elsa (Disney), Some Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2019-12-25 13:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18262703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seethedawn/pseuds/Seethedawn
Summary: Anna leaves. Slowly, things get better.(Hopefully a worthwhile take on the typical Anna-Rescued-From-Abusive-Hans trope)





	1. Chapter 1

Hans Westergaard is in a somewhat rare good mood. Pleasantly tipsy, he leaves his driver a tip as he slides smoothly across the back bench of his limousine. He doesn't indulge in this particular service particularly often, but he feels it is important for the staff to see him picked up from the office's party in a fashion worthy of his position. 

His mood quickly sours as he turns to face the house. She has left lights on in at least three rooms, and the curtains to the living room are wide open, exposing his household interior to the world. She knows better than to waste his electricity like that. She knows he likes his home to remain private. 

He sets his jaw and makes his way into the house. The front door is unlocked, and she isn't in the kitchen. He doesn't hear her coming either. She's always so loud.

Hans huffs. Perhaps she’s still sulking about the party. It is after 11, and he told her he wouldn’t stay late. He rolls his eyes. He isn’t going to take any attitude from her and she's going to have a real problem if he finds her sleeping. There are dishes in the sink, and he doesn't find his dinner plate in the warmer or the fridge. 

Now he’s angry. 

He moves further into the house, searching. Honestly, he’s hoping she’s asleep now. Give her a shock. 

If she thinks he’s going to tolerate flagrant disrespect on this level… after all these years…

He doesn’t find her. 

Not in their bedroom, not in their bathroom. 

Not in the guest suite either. 

Not in any of the closets. 

Not under the bed. 

“Anna?”

He heads back downstairs, picking up his pace. 

Not on the patio, not in the laundry room. Not in the garage, though his car is still there. 

“Anna!”

He rushes back up stairs now, feet thumping loudly on each carpeted step. 

Her draw is empty. Her little trinkets are missing. Her bathroom cabinet is cleaned out. 

Back downstairs, louder, faster, cursing. 

Her DVDs. Her folder from the file cabinet. Her coat and shoes. Her stupid little snowman mug.

Gone. 

He pulls out his phone and calls her. 

He hears rattling from the kitchen. Her phone vibrating - it’s in the trash. He knocks the thing over, sending trash everywhere - she didn’t fucking take the trash out either today - finds the phone. It’s empty. Factory reset, in fact. 

Back on his phone he pulls up Facebook Messenger. She’s not in his contacts anymore. He can’t pull up her page. He tries her login info - deactivated. He can’t get into her email either. Her Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are all gone too. 

Something tells him she’s not huddled at the bus stop waiting for him this time. 

He throws each and every one of his expensive crystal glassware against the wall, one satisfying smash after another. But it’s not enough. He throws the coffee pot, sends one of the bar stools flying. 

There is a photograph taped to the back of the front door. He crosses his ruined kitchen to reach it, though he can see it well enough. It’s Anna, from years ago, when she still had that awful red hair, and she’s with her sister. He knows this picture, the way they are posed together, Anna's big toothy smile and chubby chin. She had this picture on display for years even though she knew it drove him mad, even after she and her sister stopped talking. He’d gotten so sick of it, hadn’t he ripped it up? This copy is glossy and whole. 

He pulls it down and turns it over in his hands, examining. There is a note on the back in thick black sharpie. 

 

YOU LOSE, ASSHOLE  
<3 E.

 

He sees red. He shreds the picture. Spits on it. He punches the door so hard it rattles in the frame. 

That fucking cunt. THAT FUCKING CUNT. 

He stands in his disaster of a kitchen, knuckles bleeding, chest heaving. He takes stock. 

She’s smarter than he always thought, but obviously still stupid. 

He retrieves his phone and searches “Elsa Andrelle,” glad to see she’s still using her maiden name. No Facebook, no social media at all, except a LinkedIn. He clicks the link, and almost throws the phone with impatience as the stupid thing asks his permission to switch to the app. 

She’s a lawyer now (shit) and she’s listed the name of her current employer, though she must be new to the workforce because there isn’t any previous work history on her page. 

A shark’s smile spreads across his face as blood runs from his busted knuckles down to his wrist then drips slowly onto his floor. He enters Anna’s sister’s company’s name into Google, and pulls up the maps result. 

Then he almost chokes on his tongue. 

The company has five locations across the US. None of them are local. 

He uses the search function on their company website to find her. He gets back some bullshit professional bio. She got her degree at the same university as him, so obviously she’s moved and it doesn’t specify which location she works at. He sees a professional email address and phone extension, but he has the presence of mind not to go that route. 

His phone dings to let him know he has a message waiting on LinkedIn. 

Elsa Andrelle has viewed his profile.

Elsa Andrelle has sent him a message.

Elsa Andrelle has blocked him. 

He clicks to view the message, realizing that the fucking app has notified her that he viewed her sad little page. 

It's the kiss-blowing emoji.


	2. Chapter 2

The HR Manager sits across the plastic table from Anna. He’s got the resume she brought in front of him on the table. He doesn’t spend a ton of time looking at it. Elsa helped her, but it’s a sad little thing all the same. A lot of creative use of white space. 

Elsa had helped her expand her volunteer experience, even though it all happened in the last six months and all at the same Domestic Violence Shelter, which Anna would have preferred to leave out in this particular circumstance, but it’s pretty much all she’s got. 

That and two semesters of Undecided Major at her old University. 

Elsa helped her practice STAR interviewing (Situation, Task, Action, Result! She’s been repeating to herself all morning), but it’s harder when you have basically nothing to draw on. 

“Well we’ll dive right in then, shall we? How about you tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a superior and how you resolved it?”

Wildly, the first thing that pops into her head is one time she got the wrong brand of coffee and Hans totally lost it (situation). It was a nicer brand than usual, and it had been on sale, so Anna had thought it would be nice. She wanted to go back and replace it (task?) but Hans didn’t want her to waste gas going back to the store, even though it was only a couple of miles, so she had walked (Action). And the result was that he had the right coffee in the morning and she never messed it up again. 

That had been in the beginning, they weren’t married yet but she had moved from the dorm into his house. Back when she still said things like, “people get really particular about their coffee,” and, “gas is really expensive this summer,” even though she already didn’t have anyone to say these things out loud to. 

That’s obviously not the answer she gives. She and Elsa practiced for this one. 

Situation: “When I was in college I had a professor who assigned team leaders for the group projects our team leader wanted to split the project into four parts and complete each part separately. I thought this would make our presentation seem un...cohesive.”

A brief stumble there, but he’s taking notes. 

Task: “I wanted to find time to all work on the project together at the library, so that way our project would seem more cohesive.”

Anna’s brain has erased all synonyms for cohesive. 

What other words had Elsa used? Same-ish? Together-ed? 

Action: “So I talked to the team leader about my concerns, and,” Result: “We agreed to do the prep work individually and then meet up along the way. We got an A on the project”

Elsa insists this is called Embellishing the Story, rather than, you know, Lying. 

Even though basically none of it actually happened. 

They go through a few more questions, a lot of them Elsa had predicted, calling them Interview 101. 

Anna’s starting to feel pretty confident, when he turns back to the large-font, still-almost-empty resume. 

“So, before we wrap up, I did want to ask you about your specific work history.” 

Anna smiles and nods and her stomach flips like an Olympic gymnast on a balance beam.

“Mhmm?” she says, like she doesn’t know what he means.

“Just to clarify, you don’t have any paid work experience?”

Anna shakes her head, feels the blood rushing in her ears, “No. But I have been doing some volunteer work that I’m happy to talk to you about.” 

Another one of Elsa’s lines that sounded much better on Elsa’s lips with Elsa's confidence. 

“So you’ve been in school then?” he peers at the paper, likely looking for a graduation date. 

“No, I only did my first year but I am signed up for some classes locally this Spring though, which I’m looking forward to.”

He’s nodding. He doesn’t write any of it down. 

“Well then, if there’s nothing else…”

“I was married.” Anna blurts. She’s used Elsa’s lines in three interviews so far and no offense to Elsa but it hasn’t been working. 

“I left school to get married and it was… A bad call. And now I’m here and I’m twenty-four and I’m applying for my first ever job.”

She’s trying so hard to meet his eyes. It’s not easy, but she needs to prove that she can. Cashiers can make eye contact with the customers, and Anna needs this man to believe she can be a cashier. 

“But I applied here because I love it!I have the rewards card, and I already talk to people about the coupons you guys have on the app! My sister didn’t even know about it but I put it on her phone and now she uses it all the time!”

Rambling, Anna. No one wants to hear you go on and on like this. 

“I just - I need this job. And I would be good at it. I don’t have experience doing this before, but I’ll learn. And my schedule is so open, you don’t even know. I will work Thanksgiving and Christmas and, and any other holidays that come up, I’ll work them, no problem!”

She kind of wants an on-the-spot job offer after her grand speech, but instead he says thank you and they shake hands and he says he will call her by the end of the week. 

She has a text message from Elsa. 'Going into a meeting, but let me know how it goes! <3<3 '

She waits until she’s out at the bus stop to reply. Types out and deletes a few versions before she settles on, 'It was okay I think. Good luck with the meeting.'

It’s soul crushing. 

It makes her feel like Hans was right. Like he knew somehow.

He often seemed to know things in a way that Anna couldn’t explain. 

He use to tell her how she would fail in the real world. She didn’t finish college. Little rich girl never had to get a job. No idea how the world works. 

And now here she is. 

Elsa is almost two hours late, so right on time really, and Anna’s watching old Hepburn movies and eating double fudge chocolate ice cream. 

Her sister joins her on the couch, tugs away the tub and replaces it with an enormous take out container of hot cheesy pasta. 

Sometimes it feels like things will always be hard, but Anna is so, so grateful to have her sister back. 

\- - - - 

 

Kristoff’s having an annoying day. He scowls at the schedule. They’ve denied his time off request, even though he gave plenty of notice. He almost never takes time off, he’s never late, never calls out. He can’t afford it. 

Usually he manages things like appointments for Sven around his work schedule. But his vet runs a free clinic every six months. It’s two Friday's out, from eight to noon. So, naturally, Kristoff is scheduled to open that day - six to fucking two.

He scans the rest of the schedule to get an idea of what his options are. Sven needs this appointment, he’s behind on his shots already, and they skipped the heartworm scan last time. 

He notices a few unfamiliar names, but that’s standard for this time of year. Fridays the warehouse crew has to take the truck delivery, which seriously limits Kristoff’s options on getting someone to cover his shift. And a lot of the guys are at forty hours for the week already, so they won’t be able to take on any more, even if they were willing. 

Kristoff puts it up on the swap shift board, maybe someone will want the hours, then, in an exercise of utter futility, he heads down the hallway and sticks his head around the HR guy’s doorway. 

“Hey, I requested next Friday off like two months ago, but I’m on the schedule. I only need the morning, can you move me back a few hours or something?”

Barely looking away from his monitor he responds, “A time off request is exactly that - a request. We can’t approve them all. Try the swap shift board.”

“I did, it’s just that I really need this day off. It’s important.” 

A shrug, “You’re a valued member of the team here Kristoff, we need you here for your scheduled shifts.”

“Great, thanks,” Kristoff starts to walk away, smart enough to know when to stop speaking, but the manager calls after him, still not rising from his desk, so Kristoff has to turn back. 

“Kristoff, I’m actually glad you came by. There are a few seasonal hires starting today, when Dan brings them by later will you do a little tour? They’ll be cashiering for now, so just the basics.” 

“Sure, fine.” 

And he stomps away. This fucking place. 

It’s a heavy day in the backroom. They had a truck this morning and one of the guys no-call-no-showed, so everything’s all backed up. It’s a struggle to maneuver the forklift in some areas, cardboard piled up because the baler needs to be emptied, pallets stacked in the walk-lanes. 

He’s almost got it cleaned up when the Manager on Duty, Dan, leads a small group of new hires through the main doors. 

Dan’s explaining about how safety is a company priority (bullshit it is), so Kristoff elects to jump down from his perch on top of a large stack of boxes, where he had been shoving another stack of boxes into the industrial baler. 

Dan’s the warehouse team’s manager, so he knows, sometimes he gets in the baler himself, but he’s a manager, promoted almost a year ago now, so he has to make that face when he catches any of the backroom guys at it. 

There’s three new people, looking around the warehouse with varying levels of interest. One of them is older, like way older. Kristoff always feels bad for the old people who have to get jobs like this. He tries to feel bad from a distance though, hearing about their bad leg, expensive utilities, and confusing smartphones - it’s aggravatingly depressing. 

The other two are younger. College kids, he assumes. Most of the seasonal hires are college kids. The girl is small, skinny, short red hair and she’s looking down at her shoes. Then there’s a guy who keeps sneaking looks at his cell phone behind Dan’s back. 

“Kristoff, this is Richard, Ellen, and Anna. They’re joining the Front End Team” he gestures between them, “guys this is Kristoff, one of our backroom team members. Kristoff, you want to give us a little tour?”

Kristoff lists and points, “Receiving area, forklift lane, stacks, freezers, coolers, fixture storage. Dan if you have a second can I talk to you about the Friday on the schedule that just went up?”

Dan’s not looking terribly impressed. 

“Give us just a second, guys. Thanks!” He drops the Manager Smile and leads Kristoff a little bit away. 

“Nice fucking tour, man. Thanks so much.”

“Sorry, It’s just that I requested that Friday off, and you said it wouldn’t be a problem and I’m on the schedule.”

“I don’t make the schedules, Kristoff, you know that. Did you put it up on the Swap Shift Board? Then there isn’t anything I can really do, but... I’ll talk to the guys, alright?”

“Alright, thanks.” 

Dan claps Kristoff on the shoulder, and nods over at the little trio. 

“I gotta go. Kid’s a dumbfuck, like you wouldn’t believe and they’re already talking to me about sending him to train back here.”

Kristoff groans. Of course. Nothing good happens in this place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I worked at a Target for three years when I was in college, and I'm going to go out of my way in the story not to say where they work, but basically that's what I'm drawing on and it's essentially a Retail AU. 
> 
> PS - Haven't seen Frozen 2, but assuming that's what's going on with my hits all of a sudden. What's the consensus? I just love my grumpy Kristoff <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kristoff struggles to find someone to take his shift.

The gossip is inevitable - retail workers don’t tend to have much to discuss outside of the customers, the managers, and each other. Kristoff mostly exists outside this bullshit, but he still has to share the same breakroom as everybody else. Every round of new hires it’s the same - for the women anyway. 

The new girl’s never had a job before - she didn’t know about punching in and out. Two of the older lady’s grandchildren live with her - let me know if you find out what’s up with that. Anna’s only twenty-four and she’s already had a divorce, and apparently the ex was older and mega rich. 

The malicious idiocy can be hard to ignore. 

The same week he’s been pulled out onto the sales floor because someone let their kid pull all the shampoo down off an entire shelf, so he and another warehouse guy have been sent to reshelve it all. It’s boring work and his companion is scheduled forty hours next week, so he can’t take Kristoff’s Friday shift. 

Kristoff hates the sales floor, he feels very exposed - too many customers about, too many potential questions about where the specific brand of skincare lotions are or details about the weekly sales.

“Did you see the new girl?” asks his partner, “Way too skinny and no ass at all, but I’d totally hit it.”

Like he’s put serious thought into the matter - weighed out the pros and cons and now he’s ready to discuss. As if any women could get hired here and the general consensus of the backroom crew would be Pass. 

Kristoff collects three vibrantly orange shampoo containers and lines them up across the edge of the shelf. Passion fruit and mango. Sounds like a smoothie. He kind of wants to open one and smell it. But Christ women’s shampoo is expensive - $12.99? That's more than a dollar an ounce. 

“Don’t you think?” The guy presses.

“What?”

He frowns, explains like Kristoff’s being slow. 

“She’s hot right- the new girl? Wouldn’t you wanna?”

“Ellen? Sure. I think her husband was in Vietnam though, so I wouldn’t risk it.” 

The guy snorts “You've got a weird sense of humor, man.” 

{ - }

The first time he really interacts with Anna he isn’t paying her much attention at all. It’s been a long day, he was in at four that morning for the big truck, and it’s almost two in the afternoon as he’s finally leaving. 

He clocks out, exhausted, checks the Swap Shift board - still nothing - and heads downstairs. He usually avoids shopping here, it’s too expensive, but he’s tired and Sven’s about out of food. 

So, huge bag of dog food on his shoulder, he heads up to the front. Kat’s at the Guest Services desk, but she’s got a line, and he doesn’t want to get stuck at Ellen’s register - she cornered him in the breakroom the other day to look at poorly-focused pictures of her grandkids - so he joins Anna’s line. She’s pleasant and chatty and asks everyone about the rewards card. Luckily no takers; the sign-up process really slows the lines down. 

Then, finally, he’s up. 

“Hi Christopher. Heading home?”

“Kristoff. And yeah.” He leans around so she can scan the barcode. 

“Kris-toff? Sorry, I didn’t realize.” The register beeps. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he hands over his employee ID and his debit card, “no receipt.”

She runs his ID, then again. Fiddles with the keyboard for a moment, then cranes her neck to Guest Services, worrying her lip between her teeth. 

She glances at him, “sorry.”

He sighs and drops the large bag on the counter. She startles at the motion or the noise. “Kat’s busy,” he tells her, though she can certainly see the Guest Services line as well as he can, “I can do it.”

He leans across the register and pulls the screen around so he can see it. She’s drawn way back, and her arms are kind of floating awkwardly between them. 

Kristoff immediately sees the problem. 

“I have one of the old IDs. It wants you to enter the last four digits of my employee number. 5484, see?” She doesn’t move to enter it. Not rolling his eyes, he leans further across the counter and hits the appropriate keys. 

“Now swipe the debit card,” he says, and she snaps out of it. 

“Thanks,” she says, “I didn’t know. They hadn’t shown me, sorry. I should’ve have-”

“It’s fine,” he says, accepting his ID, bank card, and the useless receipt, “See you.” 

And he’s finally out of there for the day. 

In reality, it’s the new guy, Richard, who has the biggest impact on Kristoff’s days. Bagging groceries is not a hugely difficult task, but the Front End is getting complaints. Sales Floor is too independent, can’t trust him to work unless there’s direct supervision. 

It’s obvious he should be let go, but it’s mid-November at this point and Kristoff knows that from now till January, it’s a boots on the ground situation. You can be dumb as shit as long as you don’t miss a day after Halloween. The kid’ll be gone by New Year’s, but that leaves Kristoff with a major problem until then. 

Front End doesn’t want him. Sales Floor doesn’t want him. Backroom doesn’t want him. 

So naturally, Backroom gets him. 

Most of the backroom trainees go through Kristoff, so he gets Richard just a few days later. It doesn’t go well - he is late to start with, then he shows up without a handheld, which you need to do anything in the back. Somehow it takes him almost ten minutes to get up to the supply closet and back. Kristoff can’t keep him off his phone, and he wants to take his breaks on the dot, no matter what he’s leaving unfinished when he goes. Mercifully he figures out fairly quickly that Kristoff doesn’t want to be buddies - they are not going to be back here discussing NFL cheerleaders, they are going to be processing stock. 

Kristoff might have been able to forgive all that, but Richard’s apparently busy on the Friday Kristoff needs covered. 

Somehow, of the three of them, it’s Ellen who’s probably not going to last. He hears it from Kat - she’s struggling to learn the software on the registers and she’s not getting enough sign-ups for the rewards card.

When Kristoff first started here, almost seven years ago now, they weren’t doing the card. Or at least not pushing it so hard. No way Kristoff would be able to get through cashier training now. 

Anna, on the other hand seems to be doing better. She’s very customer service-y and he sees her name on the Recognition board for getting five sign-ups in a single shift. 

They don’t interact any further though, and Kristoff doesn’t expect this to change. Anna is quiet and hesitant to the point of almost annoyance. She’s cashiering and he’s in the back and sometimes they’ll pass in the hallway between the timecard and the breakroom. The store is going to pick up almost a dozen seasonal hires this year, and this is Kristoff’s eighth season in retail. She’s hardly going to affect him. 

{-}

The Saturday before Sven’s vet day, Kristoff starts getting desperate. He has worked his way through most of the team at this point, but a lot of them are scheduled already or they’re at forty hours already and no one is allowed to go into overtime. Honestly, he knows if there had been a lot of options then his Time Off Request probably would have gone through. 

He is in the breakroom talking to one of his last options. It’s humiliating. 

“Come on, I covered your shift when you forgot to request Valentine’s off! I pulled a fourteen hour day for you, and you’re seriously telling me you can’t do it because you’re closing the night before?”

“That shit sucks, man, closing at eleven then back in at six? No way, sorry.”

“What if we split the shift? I can do the first four and then you can come in at ten?”

“Can’t you just reschedule your vet?” Like Kristoff’s missed such an obvious solution. 

“I’ve explained this so many times!” He feels himself raising his voice. Tries to moderate it. Not very successfully. “It’s not an appointment - every six months they do a walk-in clinic. He can’t wait for the next one and if I don’t do the clinic it’ll be like a seven-hundred dollar appointment because of the heartworm scan!”

“Seems like you should have requested it off-”

Kristoff slams his hand down on the table, “I DID, you think I’m so fucking stupid I didn’t request the fucking day off?”

There’s a squeak and the sound of a chair rattling on linoleum from the other side of the breakroom. 

He’s crossed a line. Kristoff can’t and won’t be the six-foot-four guy who loses his temper when he doesn’t get his own way, never mind that he’s at work. He doesn’t get to go slamming desks and yelling at his co-workers. Christ. His hands go up to his hair self-conciously and he ducks his eyes away. 

“Look, sorry man, forget it. I’ll figure it out.” The warehouse guy scoffs and leaves the breakroom. He’s not going to go to management, but he’ll probably tell the other guys. Fuck. 

Kristoff pretends not to see Anna, who is pretending not to see Kristoff, and he nudges a chair around so he can sit at the table and look at the wall, thinking. 

Stupid, losing his temper like that. He already feels like such shit that he can’t take care of Sven properly. He can’t go six more months being behind on his shots, but Kristoff doesn’t have the money, and he can’t call out this close to Black Friday, especially now that he’s been so vocal. 

“I’ll do it.”

He turns around. There’s no one else she could be talking to, or about. 

“What?”

“I’ll take your shift.” She’s wringing her hands, but when he notices she goes still and moved them into her lap under the table. She gives him a little smile and a shrug, “If you need to take your puppy to the vet, I can cover your shift.”

“He’s a dog, not a puppy,” Kristoff corrects, automatically, “and you’re not trained for Backroom.”

She ducks her head for a moment, but looks back up. “No, but they haven’t given me my training schedule for next week yet, and they’ve been asking if I want to cross-train. I’ll say I want to learn Backroom.”

He starts to turn away, “The shift I need covered is in four days. Thanks though.”

“Well, it’s worth asking. I mean, if you want.” 

He turns back. She’s not looking at him anymore. She’s not wrong, he supposes. 

 

In the narrow hallway between the break room and the Manager’s Offices Kristoff feels huge next to her. He watches her take deep breaths and notices the bony lines of her wrist as she pushes some red hair behind her ear. She doesn’t like having him behind her, she keeps turning to check on him. He can’t blame her after his performance in the break room. He shrinks as much as he can, embarrassed and huge, and points his gaze at the end of the hallway. At least he can see over the top of her head easily. 

Thankfully it's not a long hallway. 

The manager they’re looking for is packing up for the day, so Kristoff backs up and makes to leave. Maybe they can try catch him tomorrow. But Anna curls herself around the door to his office, feet firmly planted in the hallway, and beams at the guy like he’s made her year just by sitting there. 

“Hi,” she says, “I’m really sorry to bother you, but do you think we could ask for your help with something very quickly?”

It turns out, she’s one of those people. The world bends to her will. He’s never had anything close to that ability.

Fifteen minutes, and Kristoff is off the opening schedule for Friday, replaced with Anna. She’s also got four training hours with Kristoff ahead of time, and he’ll come in after the vet to finish out the shift. 

Kristoff is floored. He’s been at this all week. She’s got no reason in the world to help him. He never goes out of his way to be nice to the new hires. When they do interact, he’s been short, unhelpful, and bad tempered.

But beyond the confusion is the relief. “Thank you, Anna.” He tells her, really truly sincere, as they stand together and update the swap shift board. She smiles at him as she takes the pen and the clipboard. She’s looking up at him and he sees her freckles for the first time. 

“You’re welcome. Maybe - you can show me pictures of your dog, if you want.”

This, Kristoff can readily promise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna trains in the backroom.

The heavy warehouse door swings shut behind her with a soft thud. She’s been back here before, obviously, but not like this. Four hours. Alone. 

Well, she won’t be alone. That’s really the bigger issue, isn’t it. 

The majority of the space is dominated by tall shelving, three or four times her height easily. The wide shelves create a series of deep aisles that are hidden from view. Some of the lights are motion activated, Anna can’t actually see the far walls. She follows the walkway further in, wringing her hands. She doesn’t see him anywhere yet. 

She eyes the large industrial equipment, stacks of mushed cardboard as tall as she is almost. 

This, she thinks, is going to go poorly. 

She’s so stupid. Why would she volunteer for this? As annoying as it is, the fact is she’s a girl - they don’t even ask her to help customers carry groceries out to their cars! She was never in a million years going to be assigned a Backroom shift. 

But puppies need shots, so here she is. 

Problem is, it feels so good. She’s making her own decisions about how she spends her time for the first time in years. It’s exhilarating - Sure, Anna can come in even though she wasn’t originally scheduled, not like she has anyone to check in with! 

Well, she had obviously put it up on the calendar in Elsa’s kitchen, so her sister would know. But that’s a different thing. Elsa puts her stuff up on the calendar too. 

Anna knows she’s dilly-dallying. But she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. Does he want her to wait here for him? Should she go find him? Will he be annoyed if she isn’t in the entrance if she does go looking for him? Should she have waited for him at the front of the store? What if he thinks she’s lazy, just standing around, wasting company time like this. She could start something, but she doesn’t want to mess anything up, she has no idea what she would even do anyway. Stupid idea. 

She startles badly, handheld clattering to the floor despite a few hapless attempts to catch it. Behind her he pushes the swinging doors open with much greater ease than Anna had managed. She winces - stupid, clumsy, loud. 

“Sorry,” she rushes to say, collecting the device from the floor. It doesn’t look broken. 

“They build those things sturdy,” he tells her, back to tapping on his own. “Ready to get started?”

He moves past her and she feels like when you’re driving on the freeway and a huge police car goes past your window. That moment of - how fast am I going? Am I about to be pulled over? The feeling of being hunted, almost. 

The feeling does not dissipate as she follows him deeper into the cavernous, cold space. 

She tried hard to remember everything he says. She doesn’t want to make him repeat himself. 

Backstock is when people bring stuff back from the sales floor that needs to be put away in the right place on the shelves. You have to update the location and the count in the handheld every time or it throws off the inventory. 

Onlines are orders where customers have paid already and they have to be done every hour. It’s important not to get behind. 

Pull Batches are to replace stuff that is selling out on the sales floor. Pull batches are constant this time of year, he tells her, you’ll never zero out your Pull Batches in November. 

That’s all fine and easy enough, she knows some of the terminology from being trained up front anyway. The problem is, she doesn’t like to stand close enough to him to see what he’s showing her on his handheld. 

He quizzes her about a software process he just showed he and she gets it wrong. 

“No, come here - ” 

_Come here_. She messed it up. She wasn’t listening properly and he knows it. 

“Sorry,” she says, not moving. 

“It’s fine, I know the system is fucked. C’mere, I’ll show you again.” He waves her over again. 

She steels herself and steps into the wide orbit of his arms. 

“I’m a really slow learner, sorry.” She’s not looking at him, or the handheld, or the item they’re practicing on. Just her sneakers - the floors are super dirty back here. 

It’s frustrating because she _knows_. Of course she knows, nothing is actually going to happen. She works in a nation-wide chain, and what, she’s scared her trainer is going to haul off and grab her because he had to repeat himself? It’s silly, and Anna knows it’s silly. 

Another part of her brain whispers back, _maybe_. 

She wouldn’t tell anyone. If he decided to do something small enough - she’d keep quiet. Hans had known she would keep quiet. Maybe all men can tell which ones will keep it to themselves. 

It’d be his word against hers, and even the managers here listen to Kristoff. He’s been here for years and she’s new, and they warned her he was short-tempered, and she volunteered and she didn’t listen to him properly and Anna has learned something important about herself in her years with Hans - she can keep secrets better than anyone ever thought. 

“Hey,” his voice startles her out of her thoughts. 

He’s not standing so close anymore. He’s not blocking the walkway either, he’s moved almost all the way to the wall. Air seems to fill her lungs again. Her peripheral vision is back. 

“If you log back in to your device I’ll walk you through how to do it.”

Startled, she scrambles to enter her employee number. 

“So you want to start on the homepage, then use ‘Process an Action’ then select ‘Backstock’. If you select ‘Backstock’ straight from the homepage then it’s just a search function.”

“Oh,” she swallows, “thank you for explaining that.”

He watches her for a second, then shrugs lightly, “Yeah well, like I said - system’s fucked.”

{ - }

Kristoff thinks that the training is going well enough. 

That’s not fair - she’s doing great really. He wouldn’t have her transferred back here permanently or anything. He’s teaching her Backroom-Lite, none of the complicated stuff, but she’s picking it up fast. 

The main issue is she’s clearly scared of him. Maybe?

He turns to show her something on his handheld and finds she’s drifted about three feet back from him. Again. So yeah, she’s scared of him. 

It’s not a foreign experience for Kristoff. Growing up like he did, he met a lot of scared people and a lot of scary people. Then, when he hit the growth spurt that changed his life, suddenly people categorized him differently. 

It makes him feel like Shrek. 

Anna has been visibly uncomfortable from the moment he got back here. It’s different from the general sense of hyper awareness you pick up from women when you’re six-foot-four and it’s dark out and you’re waiting for the same bus. It’s different too from how Anna was when they were in the brightly lit breakroom. Sharper. She’s about to startle out of her own skin. 

 

He thinks they both need a break. 

He sends her to process backstock a few aisles over. Tries to walk the line between condescending and considerate when he tells her not to worry if she has questions, she can ask him. Tries not to show his frustration at the idea of her being to scared to come ask then entering a whole aisle wrong or something. 

Once her aisle is done, he’ll send her on break, then when she gets back, he’ll go, then it'll be another hour till the store closes and another half hour after that till they can go. Easy. 

As usual when Kristoff comes up with a solid plan, some idiot fucks the whole thing up. 

He hears the warehouse doors go and the area brightens as someone sets the lights off. Not in the mood to deal with someone who isn’t specifically looking for him, Kristoff doesn’t head out into the mail aisle. His cart is out there, if they need him they'll see it. 

The handheld is feeding him some error code when he scans a specific color of spatula. Apparently the in-store count is zero, even though it’s showing up in his Pull Batch? He just hates this stupid software so much. 

He hears Anna’s voice approaching, “He’s just down one of these aisles. Sorry, it’s just he said I needed to check in…”

Another voice - the kid Front End is passing off on them - Richard. “Yeah, he trained me back here too. Talk about a control freak.”

“Oh, Kristoff, there you are,” says Anna as he emerges into the mail aisle. She looks tense, her eyes are darting around and she’s clutching her handheld close. 

“Did you get your aisle finished?”

She takes a step back as he heads toward the pair. “Not yet, sorry, I just - ”

Richard cuts her off, “Anna and I were going to go on break real quick.”

Kristoff’s pretty sure Anna’s not into that idea. Plus, he wants to review her work before she goes on her break and she needs to actually finish before that can happen. Besides the fact that she isn’t scheduled to go yet anyway. But even if none of that were true, Kristoff would say no just for the satisfaction. 

“I’d rather stick to our original schedule,” he says to Anna directly. 

“Oh, no, that’s fine, sorry, I’ll just - ” she gestures back to her aisle and speeds off. 

“Was there something you needed back here?” He asks Richard, who rolls his eyes and walks off. Kristoff stands in the walkway watching until the warehouse doors swing shut behind him. 

 

She’s very tense, squished into the aisle with him while he checks her work, even though he’s made sure to go in first so she isn’t blocked in. She has it pretty much all correct - it’s hardly rocket science - but she seems pleased when he tells her. He wants to make her smile like that again, a wild thought that comes out of nowhere, so he tells he he thinks she’ll do well enough on her own on Friday. 

It works. The little smile he’s seeking flashes briefly across her face. 

Discomfited, Kristoff waves her off, “So I’ll see you after your break then. Be back at,” he checks his handheld for the time, “nine-thirty.”

“Oh, okay, thanks,” she heads up the aisle, pauses, then turns back to him. “Sorry, I know you wanted to stick to the original schedule, so I don’t mind either way, just, if it’s easier, maybe I can help with another aisle and then take my break later? Or, I don’t mind, I don’t have to go at all. The last break is so close to the store closing…”

“Don’t go offering to skip breaks. They’ll start expecting it then you’ll be screwed by Christmas. But if it’s all the same to you, I left some stuff in the Homegoods aisle that needs to be backstocked, then you can go after that?” She nods, looking serious, “Great. B-Twelve.”

She starts to turn away, and he should keep his mouth shut and stay where he is - she doesn’t like having him behind her, she speeds out of these aisles like it’s a race with him in second, but he’s a big impulsive idiot so he takes two steps after her and blurts, “If he’s bothering you, you can go to HR. Management is shit here, but they would get rid of him, if he’s a problem.”

She’s very flustered now. He gets an “Oh, okay,” and another apology for the road, and she’s away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys all for your comments! I am glad my grumpy real-world Kristoff is being well received. 
> 
> I don't have much of a schedule planned, but I'm unlikely to find time to update again before the holidays.


End file.
